The Chicago Auditorium Building: Adler and Sullivan's Architecture and the City (Chicago Architecture and Urbanism) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy The Chicago Auditorium Building: Adler and Sullivan's Architecture and the City (Chicago Architecture and Urbanism)? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on The Chicago Auditorium Building: Adler and Sullivan's Architecture and the City (Chicago Architecture and Urbanism). Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

The Chicago Auditorium Building: Adler and Sullivan's Architecture and the City (Chicago Architecture and Urbanism) ReviewI just finished reading this extraordinary book (Dec 2010) , and can't believe I have not seen anybody write anything about in the Amazon reviews ; I run to it all by accident as I was trying to find out about possible connections between Frank Llowd Wright and the events in Chicago during the late 1880's , and how come main architectural historians I had been aware off had avoided refering to these aspects that shaped the city's architecture during these years. And I was extremely enlightened by a particular footnote and reference to John Edelmann,which sent me back to read again my readings of forty years ago on Louis Sullivan, actually re-reading his "The Autobiography of an Idea", and search further characters and people that might have had some influence on his "social order" enlightment,besides other issues; This book proved to be a treasor, not only of extraordinary research pertaining to one particularly great building, about which so much has been "silenced" over the years by main stream architectural historians, but also a treasor regarding the subject nobody seems to talk about,what I believe to have been a latent "anarchic" ingredient in great architects such as Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wrigh,both of which I consider to possess a "creative anarchist's"ingredient, in the same manner as that of Alvar Aalto about which Goran Schildt wrote in his Aalto biography. The book in concern here, has no direct discussion on these issues with reference to Sullivan or Wright (parenthtically), but there is substantial discussion pertaining to how the social-anarchic movements in Chicago, played a role in the making of the Auditorium building, particular architecture, particuluarly through Siry's very clear discussion and facts of the Germanic immigrant community, their struggles and ideas as well as the spaces they gothered, which eventually lead to the Auditorium as an antidote and advancement over them , a mediator and agent of brinking culture to a wider audience, an agent of peace with an eye to prosperity, all this a vision of the intuitive client Ferdinand Peck, and those two intuitive and great architects . A great book, deeply researched and meticulously documented, with in depth information at many levels, extraordinary photography and rare visual evidence from "period" sources, unique layout and Joyful to read as it has simple and clear writing, devoid of the esoteric and occasionally incomprehensible language of many academic writers, particularly of many Europeans. This is not a "coffee table book", but a deeply serious and yet very joyful book ;
A really great Book !
Anthony C.Antoniades,AIA
Former Professor of Architecture UTA
p.s I Had visited Chicago and the Building twice but this is the first time I can say, I really know the buildingThe Chicago Auditorium Building: Adler and Sullivan's Architecture and the City (Chicago Architecture and Urbanism) Overview

Want to learn more information about The Chicago Auditorium Building: Adler and Sullivan's Architecture and the City (Chicago Architecture and Urbanism)?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Why Architecture Matters: Lessons from Chicago Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Why Architecture Matters: Lessons from Chicago? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Why Architecture Matters: Lessons from Chicago. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Why Architecture Matters: Lessons from Chicago ReviewAt the heart of this book, a collection of Kamin's Chicago Tribune articles spanning nearly a decade, is the author's adherence to his "consistent but flexible principles" of Activist Criticism. His critiques are not mere assessments of buildings as works of art; they are convincing arguments that as a whole show us the significant role architecture plays in a city. Far too many urban-dwellers blindly take whatever buildings go up around them and fail to realize how architecture shapes their lives, for better or worse, but Kamin implores us and our civic leaders to be more discerning, demanding worthy projects that will strengthen our cities.
Blair Kamin is not just a great critic with sharp insight: he's a terrific writer whose articles are seasoned with wit and a highly readable eloquence. Upon reading his work, it is no surprise that he won a Pulitzer Prize for criticism. It helps to be familiar with Chicago's landmark buildings, but that is not a prerequisite to learning some important lessons. This book is not just pleasure reading for architecture students, but for anyone who cares deeply about the architectural decisions being made in his or her city. By frequently reviewing proposed projects, Kamin goes on the offensive, raising some keen questions that go alarmingly unasked by the developers and politicians involved. This approach, with the resulting influence he wields, has altered the course of events in Chicago many a time (though, sadly, not always). One wishes he had the final approval on all the city's projects before groundbreaking. Architecture, as he says, is the "inescapable art" we all have to live with on a daily basis, and Kamin's activist criticism encourages us to learn from past mistakes in order to form a more livable city.Why Architecture Matters: Lessons from Chicago Overview

Want to learn more information about Why Architecture Matters: Lessons from Chicago?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Lost Chicago Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Lost Chicago? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Lost Chicago. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Lost Chicago ReviewIf you care about the history of Chicago and/or American architecture, you will be blown away by this photographic treasure trove of the Windy City's lost legacy. Through fire, ignorance and greed many of the country's most beautiful buildings have been lost. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the merchant princes and the stockyards, George Pullman and Hull House's Jane Addams, Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, the Columbian Exposition. These people and events shaped what few would neglect to identify as one of America's architectural centers.
This beautiful book is filled with more than 200 black-and-white photographs of buildings, bridges and other structures tragically allowed to fall into disrepair, destroyed by natural disaster, or bulldozed for parking lots and malls, repeated testaments to the Gordon Curve, predicting that a building is valued most when it is new, that it is least valued and most likely to be razed at approximately 70 years of age, and that if it makes it past that nadir it will begin to rise again in value as a relic and monument.
Each chapter is preceded by several well-written and accessible pages, and each photograph is accompanied by informative paragraphs and quotes. The author delves into Chicago's beginnings as a frontier fort and its rapid growth into a bustling mercantile hive, along the way outlining the history of the peoples and policies of various times from 1803 to the 1970s, organized into ten conceptual and functional groups such as residences, hotels, railway stations, churches, arthouses, The Fire and the fairs.
The photographs are wonderful, many I've never seen before, and each is described well, though the book would benefit by containing more maps. The book is constructed of good heavyweight paper and concludes with picture sources and notes, and a good index. It should be of interest to those with some connection to Chicago, architecture or American history, particularly of the 18th and 19th century.Lost Chicago Overview

Want to learn more information about Lost Chicago?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...